GREG Fulton wasn’t too impressed when a Telstra phone bill arrived in his mail yesterday — barely a week after the company announced it would suspend accounts in the wake of the November 22 Warrnambool exchange fire outage.
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The bill for his internet and mobile phone service was issued on December 2.
When he rang an assistance line number printed on the bill he found the call-taker and two other department workers didn’t seem to know about the outage.
“I said we’ve had a fiasco down here, but no one up there knew anything about it,” he told The Standard.
“The first call-taker put me through to two different departments. Eventually the first woman was able to quash my bill.”
Another customer, Shereee Carey, told of a frustrating saga involving her parents trying to get help to have their phone line restored.
“When the phone still would not work the girl informed mum that they would have to send someone out to check the line at a cost of $140. Mum refused to pay.”
Ms Carey said the help-line woman then diverted the landline to her mother’s mobile and told her someone would call back within 48 hours.
“It appears call centre staff do not understand what is happening here and are not paying attention to people calling the help-line,” she said.